Heart Breaker

<snip>
Folding her legs up in front of her as she sat down on the ground, Cass leaned forward to hug her knees to her chest and rest her chin on her arms, turning her head slightly to glance sidelong at Jay out of the corner of her eyes
“I’m sorry” she said after a moment and turned to look at him, her green eyes meeting his “I was stupid. I’m so sorry for everything”
Silently reaching out, she snaked a hand into one of his, their fingers intertwining in the darkness
“So sorry” she whispered

<end snip>

Jay pulled his hand away from hers. “Cass, stop.” He said gently
“What?” she replied
“This, you and me. We can’t”
“But…” Cass began
“No buts” Jay replied “just…listen. Katrina and I, we….we’re back together.”
“…..oh….” Cassandra said, not able to say much else.
“I’m sorry…but…she’s my wife, y’know? We have a child. I spent 600 years trying to find her, I can’t throw all that away for the sake of…” he stopped himself dead, realising that this wasn’t going to let her down as gently as he’d hoped.
“For the sake of WHAT?” Cass snapped
“That came out wrong…I mean…I think you’re great…but, what we had, a few weeks of fun, it..it can’t compete with a happy marriage, and a family…”
Cass said nothing, but turned her head away from him to hide the tears forming in her eyes.
“You have to understand…”Jay said, placing a hand on her shoulder, only to be brushed away. “If things were different…maybe…but…I love her. I always have. If not for the bug’s, we’d have died three-million years ago after a long happy marriage, kids, grandkids…we’ve got a chance to have that again…”
“Of course I understand…” she said weakly. “It was always about her. Everything you’ve done for the last 6 centuries. I’d be an idiot to think you’d choose me…”
“That’s not…” Jay started, but stopped himself. He could see she was heartbroken. He could tell from the way her shoulders moved that she was silently sobbing.
It was at this point Jay said the thing he would regret most of all.
In fact, it might just have been the most stupid thing he’d ever said in his 641 years of life.
To his credit, he was trying to lighten the mood.
What he said was..
“If it’s any consolation. Pancake’s single…”

<tag – sorry it’s short. I’m pressed for time, as I’m getting ready for going on holiday tomorrow. Chances are I’m going to spend the next 2 hours wrestling the cat into her carry-box to take her to the cattery…so as I fully expect to lose at least one finger, I figure I’d better post now! I’ll be away for most of next week, so am unlikely to post, but I do have wi-fi and 3G so will be able to pick up emails if anything desperately urgent happens. As I’m away though, and Onion is off buying houses, Jack and Andy Locke (Alex and Cass) will be taking care of stuff for us (so I entirely expect to find the place burned down when I get back) so give one of them a shout – in the meantime, lets rendezvous with Seymour’s group and get that shuttle – and if you have any ideas for the next plot, run it past the guys, I’m happy for you to crack on with another plot.
Toodle pip folks, Stay Frosty >